Nothing held back for maintenance because the houses they recommend buying are all newly rehabbed, and nothing held back for capital expenses because you should sell them in less than five years and move into multifamily investments so nothing major should break before then. 

He has already submitted an application through Zillow, and we have the contact number of his current home manager.Please let me know if it's still a good idea to ask the potential tenant for a recommendation letter from their current landlord, or if calling the manager would suffice.By the way, what should we do if the tenant has simply provided a friend’s number, and the friend pretends to be the landlord or property manager, or if he just make fake letter?

I highly recommend that any investor in Canada  find a similar database as well. 

Is private capital a recommended route vs conventional borrowing?

Would you still recommend keeping it or would it be better to sell?

I’d recommend buying a small multi family to give you broader protection against vacancy and other expenses.

And would you recommend it?

You'll want to be able to obtain balances, confirm payments were received, obtain payoff statements, etc.Ask your friend to share the username and password for the servicer's websiteI recommend using a loan servicer to collect your payments and disperse payments each month to the underlying mortgage servicer.

I would recommend just taking out another bridge loan if you need more time to sell, or refinancing into a long term DSCR loan if you do not qualify for conventional loans 

Any recommendations for how to best handle this?